Ikon’s exhibition with Canadian artist Ron Terada is his first solo presentation in Europe. Typically it involves a deadpan reproduction of texts drawn from a wide range of sources including street signage, popular music and advertising. The exhibition title and selection of work suggests a self-portrait of sorts, but one in which the artist himself is never actually glimpsed.

Terada’s iconic installation Entering City of  Vancouver (2002), a large-scale aluminium highway sign, is indistinguishable from one that might sit roadside at the border of his home city and is a wryly emphatic assertion of the artistic context he occupies. A new series of text-based paintings titled Jack (2010) are central to Who I Think I Am. Across 16 canvases Terada inscribes verbatim an entire chapter from the memoirs of Jack Goldstein, an American painter and conceptual artist who committed suicide in 2003. Goldstein here dwells on the struggles he experienced as an artist, the machinations of the art world and his status amongst his contemporaries. By repeating his words Terada leaves us asking how much he identifies with the insecurities expressed by Goldstein.

Terada’s appropriation of varied forms of language continues in Soundtrack for an Exhibition (2000–), the latest in an ongoing series of homemade playlists, in this case made especially as an accompaniment to Ikon’s presentation. Free copies are available for visitors, produced in limited edition vinyl format. Terada’s use of promotional material, instead of more conventional media, is the means by which he circumnavigates the art world. Big Star (2003), is a straightforward neon copy of the logo of the mythic rock band of the same name, who in turn had copied it from a local supermarket chain. In the same vein Ikon’s entrance sign, in Las Vegas style lights, installed in 2006, is by Terada. His most recent work, an advertisement for his exhibition at Ikon, can be seen both in the gallery and the April edition of Frieze magazine. Terada thus keeps his distance by avoiding a signature style, slipping into established formats, but his choices are personal and connect us to him.

A catalogue accompanied the exhibition, priced £15.

Organised in collaboration with the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, Canada and the Justina M.Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto, Canada. Supported by the British Columbia Arts Council.